Rebecca Douglass is no stranger to this blog, and readers here will likely have visited The Ninja Librarian to read the flash fiction on Rebecca’s blog too. We both got the idea of flash fiction collections at the same time, and only when we talked about beta reading did we realise our minds were working in harmony!

So with full disclosure, I was a beta reader for these collections, but I bought my own copies at Smashwords.

Wizard Libraries and Dragon Archives

wizard tales rebecca douglass

Rebecca Douglass used to be a librarian, so it’s not a surprise that stories set in libraries play a large part in her flash fiction… and most of them are rather more like Hogwarts than my local library!

Like me, There are characters who recur through the authors’s flash fictions, and here we start with the Dragon Library collection. Millicent may not have been born a dragon, but she was raised a dragonhandler, and keeping the Dragon Archives under control becomes second nature to her. Books do weird things: ‘spelled books’ steal letters from other books, and eat unwary goblins. I wasn’t sorry to leave Millicent and her adventures, and move on to a magnificent library in a deserted city, miles from anywhere. This was, I think, my favourite int he collection. It’s a slightly different style, which lends an air of antique mystery to it. The other I most remember is the one with the spectacles. I shall say no more than that, as I don’t want to ruin it for you.

A fun short collection.

Strange Drinks: Tavern Tales Short and Tall

strange drinks: tall tales rebecca douglass

I confess I like bar-room stories – in the wild west, that is… or a fantasy wild west. I even have some of my own (I think they are in the Time and Tinplate collection – one’s a Sir Woebegone story).

This starts out with three stories featuring the world of the Lonesome Gulch. Wild west and aliens. It’s a good mix. But I don’t think they are the strongest of these tales. That honour must go to the Double Parked Dragon. If that doesn’t conjure up a picture for you, of a dragon outside a bar, then I don’t know what your imagination is up to.

And then Rebecca surprised me with a story I hadn’t seen before — a story set in the same world as her excellent adventure included in the IWSG Anthology Tick Tock: A Stitch in Crime.

Well worth getting a copy to slip in your pocket and read over a drink!

NOTE: Rebecca has another collection out — Missing Snow: A Collection of Holiday Stories, and another in preparation.

Book Reviews | Flash Fiction collections by Rebecca M. Douglass

4 thoughts on “Book Reviews | Flash Fiction collections by Rebecca M. Douglass

  • 13 March, 2021 at 8:49 am
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    Hi Jemima and Rebecca – her stories sound like so much fun – love the concept and the title … all the best to you both with your various publications. Stay safe – Hilary

  • 13 March, 2021 at 4:27 pm
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    Thanks for the shout-out :). I have tried to get something wholly new, or re-written beyond recognition, into each collection. The stories in the collections are no longer available on my blog :).

  • 15 March, 2021 at 12:35 am
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    Thanks for sharing about Rebecca’s flash fiction. Both collections sound great.

  • Pingback:Book Review | August Catch-up ~ Jemima Pett

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